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toxicity information Articles

What is Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) testing? Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) testing is an important component of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA’s) integrated approach for detecting and addressing toxicity in surface waters. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program, authorized by the Clean Water Act, controls water pollution by ...

Lynn L. Bergeson, “toxicity testing moves ahead,” chemical processing, September 2010. The Tox21 Partnership aims for far faster and less expensive screening. Who would have thought that an automated laboratory working around the clock could screen chemical substances for interactions with biological targets at speeds mere mortals could hardly consider — let alone match? Well, ...

Although species sensitivity distribution (SSD) is a key concept for quantitative ecological risk assessment, its application is limited owing to a lack of sufficient data for the analysis, especially on the toxicity of herbicides for primary producers. The authors developed a method of herbicide SSD estimation using single‐species toxicity data and information on the herbicide mode of action ...

Under a consent agreement among EPA and proponents both for and against stricter regulation, EPA is to issue a new coal ash disposal rule by the end of 2014. Laboratory toxicity investigations often yield conservative estimates of toxicity since many standard test species are more sensitive than resident species, thus could provide information useful to the rule‐making. However, few laboratory ...

Co‐occurrence of pesticides such as synthetic pyrethroids (SPs) and metals in aquatic ecosystems raises concerns over their combined ecological effects. Cypermethrin (CP), one of the top five SPs in use, has been extensively detected in surface water. Cadmium (Cd) has been recognized as one of the most toxic metals and is a common contaminant in the aquatic system. However, little information ...

The fourth meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Conference of the Parties of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants opened today in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss restricting and phasing out the world’s most dangerous chemicals. Representatives from Indigenous communities of the Arctic greeted the delegates with drumming and traditional songs to remind them of ...

In order to protect aquatic life, many acute and short-term chronic whole effluent toxicity (WET) tests have been employed for assessment of the toxicity of wastewater. Toxicity tests using biological responses to measure effects provide valuable information about the significance of chemical contamination. The response of an organism to contaminated effluents provides an integrated measure of ...

A spreadsheet model (PETROTOX) is described that predicts the aquatic toxicity of complex petroleum substances from petroleum substance composition. Substance composition is characterized by specifying mass fractions in constituent hydrocarbon blocks (HBs), based on available analytical information. The HBs are defined by their mass fractions within a defined carbon number range or boiling ...

In applying cross‐species extrapolation safety factors from honeybees to other bee species, some basic principles of toxicity have not been included, e.g. the importance of body mass in determining a toxic dose. This study re‐analysed published toxicity data taking into account the reported mass of the individuals in the identified species. The analysis demonstrated a shift to the left in the ...

Prior to the 1970s, legislative acts addressing hazardous chemicals were few in number and specific to a handful of topics. The Refuse Act of 1899 was often ignored and rarely enforced, and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 was exclusive to radioactive material. When it came to workplace and community safety involving the handling, storage, disposal, and transportation of hazardous materials, ...

On January 21st the EPA announced a new policy to increase the public’s access to information on chemicals. In the announcement, the EPA stated its intention to reject a certain type of confidentiality claim, known as Confidential Business Information (CBI), on the identity of chemicals. The chemicals that will be affected by this action are those that are submitted to EPA with studies that show ...

Portions of the Santa Maria River and Oso Flaco Creek watersheds in central California, USA, are listed as impaired, under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, and require development of total maximum daily load (TMDL) allocations. These listings are for general pesticide contamination, but are largely based on historic monitoring of sediment and fish tissue samples that showed contamination by ...

This paper investigates the application of a practical and robust control strategy for the operation of a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) used for toxic wastewater treatment. The strategy sets the operational conditions of the SBR based on the on-line information collected during the previous batch. In particular, it sets the exchange volume of the reactor, as well as the batch reaction duration ...

Fuel pollution is a significant problem in Antarctica, especially in areas where human activities occur, such as at scientific research stations. Despite this, there is little information on the effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on Antarctic terrestrial biota. This paper demonstrates that the Antarctic mosses Bryum pseudotriquetrum, Schistidium antarctici, Ceratodon purpureus and the Antarctic ...

Whole effluent toxicity (WET) testing has evolved into a critical element of many National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits issued to both industrial and municipal dischargers. Over 6,500 dischargers to both fresh and salt waters are required to conduct toxicity tests to determine if their effluent might be potentially toxic to organisms in the receiving system. While ...

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